Monday, April 2, 2012

We've now been searching for over two months for a matching donor for Cristina. Because a marrow match has not yet been located, we are working even harder with the Ontario Soccer Association and OneMatch.ca by hosting a marrow donor drive to help Cristina find her match in time. You will see the registration booth near the entrance of the stadium and we will be there working as volunteers wearing our #HopeForCristina T-shirts.

If you live near Woodbridge, ON please print Cristina's flyer and post it wherever you can. Also please share this post with your friends on Facebook, tweet it on Twitter and email it to anyone you know who lives in the area and ask them to share it with everyone they know.

Registration takes just a few minutes to fill out a form and swab the inside of your cheeks with four cotton swabs.

Joining the registry is the first step to find out if you are Cristina's match. If you are, OneMatch.ca will contact you to let you know after your registration has been processed.

You could also be a match for one of thousands of other patients, from infants to adults, worldwide who will die if a match isn't found in time.

This is an opportunity to speak with representatives from OneMatch.ca to learn the answers to questions you might have about the registry and donation process.

Our thanks to the The Ontario Soccer Association for allowing us to host this drive at their upcoming event. If you would like to help Cristina by hosting a similar drive at a large event where many people will be gathered please contact us and let us know.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Download - Print - Post flyers to help Cristina find her marrow match. See it? That's a Helping Cristina flyer hanging on the bulletin board at the Coffee Society in Cupertino, California. Please send us pictures if you post a flyer too!

There are three versions you can download:

1. A short, single page flyer with tear away tabs
2. A longer 2 page version with a single page flyer and tear away tabs on a second sheet
3. A flyer translated to Italian for people in Italy who would like to help

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Thank you for Visiting Helping Cristina

Cristina Di Corte is 22 years old and suffers from a disease so rare you've probably never heard of it before. Mitochondrial neurogastrointestinal encephalopathy (MNGIE) is an inherited condition that has caused her digestive tract to no longer be able to move food through her body or absorb nutrients from it.

• Because of this she can no longer eat or drink but instead receives all of her nutrition, fluids and medications via a central line catheter.

• She suffers from excessive weight loss.
The disease causes her to experience severe gastro-intestinal pain and she is beginning to lose sensation in her lower limbs.

• The disease also causes a toxic build-up of two chemicals in her blood so she occasionally requires blood transfusions to normalize her blood chemistry.

• MNGIE is a progressive disease that moves at different speeds in different patients. Cristina's doctors have declared her need as urgent due to the speed at which her disease is progressing.

A bone marrow transplant won't cure her, but can stop MNGIE's progress and has the potential to prolong Cristina's life by decades. Because no one in her immediate family was a marrow match, for Cristina to have a future that includes the kind of quality of life we would all want, she must now rely on the kindness of a stranger to donate their bone marrow (aka stem cells) to her.